


Fire and Ash

by athena_crikey



Category: The Iliad - Homer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 12:58:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12653982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: Achilles' life is one of fire, and as such is marked by ash.





	Fire and Ash

The history of Achilles’ life is one of fire, and as such is marked by ash, just as are the rings of a tree which has suffered many scorchings in its short lifetime. 

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Even in his earliest memories, his father is an age-broken man huddled on his throne, no longer the rider of horses he is proclaimed to be. He allows his infant son to crawl about his feet, paying little attention to the boy as he pulls with already-strong fingers at his father’s sandals and learns to raise himself to his feet with the aid of his father’s throne. When Achilles is old enough to ask his father why he has no mother, he is taken to the cold sconce in the empty room overlooking the sea. The ash remains in the dusty bronze depths, hardened with age but still with a metallic sheen where it has only half-consumed the wooden fagots.

Peleus lifts the boy high so that he can see his face in the shining blackness, as in a burnished mirror. “Here,” he tells the boy, “is your past and your future. You are to be fire or ash – a life of bright greatness but short as a candle, or one of long length but dull as lingering ashes. This flame was your first test, set upon you by the mother who bore you. That you are here and she is gone is I fear a proof of which you are to be, my son.”

It is not for several years that he learns the events of the flame as they were witnessed, and not for several more that he learns them as they were intended. 

In the end, though, he forgets about them entirely from the day cunning Odysseus blares his horn in the palace court of Scyros. As soon as the spear is in Achilles’ hand, he knows his fate. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------

They burn the plague deaths far from the ships, so that their taint cannot spread farther than it already has. The fires stretch high in the dark sky, bright golden sparks flying higher still in a mockery of stars, as though the souls of the dead struggle to rise to Olympos rather than fall to the darkness of Hades. The Myrmidons watch them in silence from the sides of the hollow ships, their own cooking fires extinguished for respect and want of fuel. 

Achilles watches the tongues of flame lick thirstily at the thick smoke from the prow of his ship, Patroclus sitting beside him in silence while ash falls down on them like black snow. Achilles will not eat this night: his slave has been taken from him, and he will suffer no other to prepare his food while rage still burns forge-bright in his heart. For the sons of Atreus he has given his men, his arms, his strength. For them he has fought and bled. For them he will die. And they honour him by taking his hard-won and well-loved prize from him by force from the sanctity of his ship.

Beside him as ever, Patroclus slices raw dates with a small blade and eats them without making an offer of them. He has grown more silent as the years have gone by, but grown closer to Achilles as well, his mere presence a comfort. He is accustomed to staying so close by now that Achilles feels his own death – nearer and nearer at hand as the days pass – is forced to wait on Patroclus’ other side. 

Achilles reaches over without a word, and takes a fruit from Patroclus’ hand. Patroclus gives him the knife by its hilt without looking.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

Achilles sits on the beach throwing stones into a small heap while the Trojan brands approach the farthest of the hollow ships. Those of the Myrmidons are far from danger yet, but he watches as the first of the dry wood catches with a crackling roar. The fires spread quickly up the corded ropes and across the naked yards. The army is engaging already, but they have been fighting for days and are exhausted. 

Patroclus, unusually absent, arrives in tears with the news that the great men – Agamemnon, Odysseus, Diomedes – lie wounded far from battle. With leaders such as these absent, there is a real threat. The fires may reach their ships, although that is still a distant possibility as of yet. For such a distant possibility, Achilles will not forgive the wrong that has been done him, although he will forget it enough to give aid. 

He sends Patroclus away to act in his stead, arrayed in his own armour. 

Achilles watches the black ships burn, kicking out his own fire and grinding out the ashes under the soles of his sandals while waiting for ever-present Patroclus to return to his side and so to keep his death from him. It is a better-sounding reason than love.

\----------------------------------------------------------------

Later, all Achilles remembers is the ash. Still hot, it singes his hands and face as he smears them across his skin in desperate grief. The smell is all-encompassing, thick and greasy as lard but choking as smoke, so that he coughs and spits when it enters his nose and mouth. He rakes handfuls of it through his tawny hair until it turns black as the mist of death, until his whole visage is one of a burnt-out husk, empty and broken.

\----------------------------------------------------------------

The pyre they build is great, a beacon to be seen by all for miles. With Patroclus burns the hair of all living Myrmidons, and for this hour they too are as dead as he. Achilles watches in silence, with only his death behind him to keep him company now. The rising smoke suffuses the weaker stars; as it grows in strength and size all but the brightest are blacked out, until at last only Orion’s Dog shines in the heavens above. Achilles does not fail to notice, but the sight does not daunt him. He knows already what it is telling him. 

The ashes are still warm when the bones are removed from the remains of the pyre. Achilles himself sifts through the black earth to find them, and packs them carefully with fat in a large golden urn. 

He makes sure to leave room.


End file.
